In packaging articles, such as cigarettes, matching errors as between the article and its immediate container, a cigarette package, are eliminated by reason of total machineperformance of the packaging operation and the presence only of proper packaging components at the machine station. The same applies for the next successive packaging operation wherein cigarette packages are machine-assembled in labelled cartons. After this packaging juncture, extended human operator participation is introduced for economy in assembly of cartons in labelled shipping containers.
Typically, an operator works plural "bays", each day including a machine for arranging cartons in form for stack-insertion into a shipping container blank and for working the blank into sealed container configuration. A lift elevator places the stack in position whereby an operator may place an opened blank adjacent the stack for machine-controlled movement into containing relation therewith. The operator selects the container blank from plural labelled varieties at the bays, which varieties may number as many as eight per bay. Since the labelled containers issue from the bay apparatus in sealed condition, if selection is made of an erroneously labelled container blank, the error is not detectable until the container is opened at the purchaser's establishment. Evident supply problems may result for the purchaser.